Archives for September 2006

The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers called this morning with the news that Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond is the winner of a 2006 ASCAP Deems Taylor Award, my second. I am unable to tell you the names of the winners in other categories. ASCAP is waiting to make an announcement until all of them have been notified. I'll give you a report when that happens.
What a lovely day. ASCAP called, and we finished painting the shed.
The first Deems Taylor, in … [Read more...]

A Rifftides reader wrote to say that he did not understand drummer Nick Martinis's quote in Charlie Shoemake's anecdote about swinging or not swinging. Martinis said to his bandmates....."Well cats, do we swing tonight or do we hide 'one'?" Perhaps there are other readers who don't get it. Here's an oversimplified explanation.
"One" is the first beat of the measure. A leader is likely to begin counting off in half time--"One, two," then double the time to the tempo he wants--"One, two, three, … [Read more...]

Posting will be light, if at all, for the next few days. For one thing, the Rifftides staff will be employed in prepping and painting the larger of the two sheds at Rifftides world headquarters. For another, The Seasons Fall Festival is underway, there's a lot of jazz and classical music to be heard, and I've been pressed into service to read a few short Carl Sandburg poems when The Bill Mays Trio and the Finesterra Trio collaborate. Among other joint efforts, they will combine Charlie Parker … [Read more...]

Charlie Shoemake, the vibraharpist, leader and teacher, checks in with a story pertinent to the Rifftides discussion about swing and jazz values.
Thought you would get a laugh out of a true anecdote that concerns the current topic in your column. 40 years (or so) ago I was playing a night at Dontes in North Hollywood with the guitarist Ron Anthony. (George Shearing, Frank Sinatra). In the group that night was a drummer named Nick Martinis (member of Pete Jollys' trio for many years among other … [Read more...]

Diana Krall, From This Moment On (Verve). The pianist and vocalist returns to the mainstream with fine playing and singing on ten standards from the great American songbook and one by Antonio Carlos Jobim. Spare arrangements by Krall on four quartet tracks and John Clayton on seven with the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra are effective settings for her dusky voice. Highlights: Gershwin's "I Was Doing All Right" and Berlin's "Isn't This a Lovely Day," the latter with short, story-tellling solos … [Read more...]

Charlie Barnet, Town Hall Concert (HEP). As the swing era wound down, Barnet was one of the leaders hoping to keep big bands alive by pleasing the dancers while accomodating bebop developments. He had the right combination of elements; his adaptation of Elllingtonia, a smattering of bop-oriented young musicians, great arrangements by Andy Gibson, Neal Hefti and Billy May and--far from least--his own gutsy saxophone solos and charisma. The December, 1947, Town Hall concert is one of his enduring … [Read more...]

The Jim Cutler Jazz Orchestra, In Progress (Pony Boy). Seattle seems to be breeding big bands. Cutler's is one of the best of the current crop. There's not a household name among the twenty-three musicians who appear in this stimulating collection of twelve originals and John Coltrane's "Dear Lord," but who cares? Execution and solos are first rate (watch out for tenor saxophonist Richard Cole). Cutler and Daniel Barry write beautifully. … [Read more...]

Jazz on the West Coast: The Lighthouse (RoseKing). This is the story of the club that became headquarters for music that blew a fresh wind through jazz in the 1950s when Chet Baker, Bud Shank, Shelly Manne and Bob Cooper were among the new stars of West Coast Jazz. Much of the story is told through recollections of veterans of the era, including Shank, Bill Holman, Stan Levey and Howard Rumsey. Rumsey was the bassist who partnered with a recovering gambler to make the Lighthouse an institution … [Read more...]

Sinclair Lewis, It Can't Happen Here (Signet Classics). One of the Nobel prize winner's most clumsily written novels, it nonetheless carries a timeless warning about how a leader able to manipulate the citizenry could quickly erode democracy's fragile stability. The totalitarian takeover that Lewis created as fiction in 1935 is a graphic echo of Patrick Henry's (or Wendell Phillips's) reminder about the price of liberty being eternal vigilance. … [Read more...]

Saxophonist, composer, bandleader and educator Bill Kirchner writes from New Jersey:
I've read all the comments with interest--fortunately, they all come from thoughtful persons. Otherwise, discussions like this can be insufferable.
My favorite rejoinder in such discussions comes, I believe, from drummer Paul Wertico: "It don't mean a thing if all it does is swing." I can think of some truly stupid music I've heard that swings quite well. The moral is that jazz--and all good music--needs to … [Read more...]

We have posted several new comments about Mel Narunsky's communique concerning what is and is not jazz, including a new one from Mr. Narunsky himself. You will find them here, appended to the original message. We also received a mini-essay from the bandleader, arranger, composer, trombonist, vocalist and libationologist Eric Felten, who has given the matter considerable thought. Here is Mr. Felten's meditation on the groove:
The question of swinging, and whether it can coexist with a post-modern … [Read more...]

Reaction to Mel Narunsky's forthright declaration that it don't mean a thing if--well, you know--is posted following his manifesto. Frankly, I thought there would be more comment, and I hope that there will be.
There is a fortunate byproduct of this discussion. I clicked on the link in the ID at the end of DJA's pithy comment and found that DJA is Darcy James Argue, a young composer, arranger and leader of an eighteen-piece band in New York. Argue is drawing praise from Bob Brookmeyer and … [Read more...]

Quite apart from nailing down a definition of swing, Ornette Coleman agreed to talk with Ben Ratliff of The New York Times about the nature of music itself. To his credit, Ratliff got the perenially unorthodox musician to emerge, even briefly, from the cloud of vagueness in which he has customarily hidden from attempts to get him to be specific about art in general, and his in particular. He mentioned to Ratliff his early saxophone influence, Charlie Parker.
With regard to his Parker worship, he … [Read more...]

This is Chico Hamilton's eighty-fifth birthday. I spent some of it listening to his new recordings, admiring his taste and versatility and marveling at the undiminished energy he pours into his drum set, an instrument that challenges the physical resources of players a quarter his age.
Like many listeners, I first knew of Hamilton when the Gerry Mulligan Quartet with Chet Baker, Carson Smith and Hamilton became an overnight phenomenon in late 1952. But his experience goes back to the beginning … [Read more...]

Bennie Maupin was on the New York jazz scene as a saxophonist and bass clarinetist in New York in the 1960s and '70s, most famously as a member of Miles Davis's Bitches Brew cast and of Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi group. He worked off and on with Hancock for twenty years. In Penumbra (Cryptogramophone), he nods briefly toward those jazz fusion days, but the loveliest music on the CD is in the Castor and Pollux interrelationship of Maupin on bass clarinet and bassist Darek Oles. The highlight is … [Read more...]

Rifftides reader Mel Narunsky writes regarding
Recent CDs, Part 4:
From a modern moldy fig
I know I'm going to get a lot of flak from this, but as an old timer, let me be among the first to acknowledge that, with a few exceptions here and there, I am one of those who do not "accept that jazz values can exist apart from standard song forms and harmony, and without being tied to a steady 4/4 pulse" - the exceptions mainly being some new recordings from the older, familiar musicians - many of … [Read more...]

In its ninth year, the little Cryptogramophone label is attracting increasing attention for recordings on the forward edge of music, with good sound and imaginative packaging. Myra Melford and Nels Cline have new CDs on the label, both likely to attract listeners who accept that jazz values can exist apart from standard song forms and harmony, and without being tied to a steady 4/4 pulse.
Myra Melford
In The Image of Your Body, Melford continues her fascination with music of India. A fearless … [Read more...]

That may be a conservative estimate of the number of times Dave Brubeck has played "Take Five" since Paul Desmond's infectious tune became a massive hit forty-six years ago. The Brubeck Quartet's 2006 Newport Jazz Festival peformance is not the most recent; wherever Brubeck played last night, he played "Take Five." But in July the cameras were rolling, or whatever digital cameras do (dig?) at Newport and caught a jovial 85-year-old leader and his band in good form and a beautiful setting. Notice … [Read more...]

The Paul Gonsalves stories keep rolling in. We had them from Germany and the US. Here's one from Canada.
The friendship of Clark Terry and Paul continued long after CT's Ellington-time. It was Clark who introduced me to Paul when both were in Toronto, CT as a soloist at the old Colonial Tavern, and Paul with Duke, who was at the Royal York's Imperial Room, I think it was. Probably '68 or '69. I was on the air live until midnight, and would run to the Colonial (or the Town Tavern) to catch a … [Read more...]

The Rifftides staff is hard at work on that survey of recent recordings. There are so blasted many of them, and things keep intervening. But part 4 is in the works. See the archive (right column) for parts 1, 2 and 3. … [Read more...]

The Video of Paul Gonsalves caught napping attracted the following comments.
The Gonsalves clip brings to mind an incident that happened when I was editing Down Beat.
Ellington was making one of his regular two-week appearances at Chicago's Blue Note, and on opening niight, in front of a full house that included local press and celebrities, Gonsalves nodded out in then same manner we see on the video.
But to compound it all, he also fell out of his chair, got to his seat again, then promptly … [Read more...]

If you're attending the opening night of the Monterey Jazz Festival, you're not reading this. If, like me, you wish you were there, you will enjoy this feature by Paul Conley of KXJZ radio in Sacramento, California. The closing is priceless. Follow the link and click on "Listen."
A year ago I was at Monterey, where I shared a signing table with John Scofield (on the left). He sold more CDs than I sold books. We had a nice chat about many things, including his days with Gerry Mullligan early in … [Read more...]

Paul Gonsalves, the tenor saxophone star of Duke Ellington's band for nearly a quarter of a century, was a wonderfully warm man who had, as the jazz magazines used to euphemistically write, "personal problems." His most obvious personal problem was alcohol. When he had overindulged, it was often Ellington's practice to good naturedly punish him by requiring him to play extra solo choruses, sometimes dozens. In clubs, Ellington sometimes attempted to elevate Paul's metabolism and hasten the … [Read more...]

Not me. Ornette.
Brian Wise of WNYC in New York sent an alert that Ornette Coleman will be the guest on Soundcheck tomorrow to talk "about his life and career, touching on some of his classic albums as well as his most recent one, Sound Grammar." Soundcheck airs from 2:00 to 3:00 pm EDT at 93.9 FM and streams online here. It is also broadcast at 3 pm ET on XM Satellite Radio. This will be a rare opportunity to hear the perpetually iconoclastic alto saxophonist speak. … [Read more...]

Thanks for gathering and posting the remarks on the Sudhalter "celebration", for that's what it was, as Dan Levinson and I agreed in L.A. over Labor Day. The timing of your posting is right since the AFJS is having its Washington Conference this coming weekend. I ask your permission to copy and distribute it there and to post it, with full attribution, to our website.
Jim Jones President
American Federation of Jazz Societies
Permission is happily granted. Have a good meeting. Maybe we'll get … [Read more...]

Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, Cleveland and Washington, DC. His writing about jazz has paralleled his life in journalism... [Read More]

Rifftides

A winner of the Blog Of The Year award of the international Jazz Journalists Association. Rifftides is founded on Doug's conviction that musicians and listeners who embrace and understand jazz have interests that run deep, wide and beyond jazz. Music is its principal concern, but the blog reaches past... Read More...

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Doug’s Picks

Jim McNeely, The Frankfurt Radio Big Band, Barefoot Dances and Other Visions (Planet Arts) McNeely fortifies his position in the upper echelon of jazz arrangers in this set of new pieces for the formidable Frankfurt Radio Big Band. The album begins with his tribute to the late Bob Brookmeyer, “Bob’s Here.” Despite the dedication to […]

Lilian Terry, Dizzy Duke Brother Ray And Friends (Illinois) Lilian Terry’s book is full of anecdotes about her friendships with the musicians mentioned in the title—and dozens of others. Enjoying modest renown in Europe for her singing, Ms. Terry has also been involved in radio and television broadcasting and is a cofounder of the European […]

Oscar Peterson Plays (Verve) In this five-CD reissue, the formidable pianist plays pieces by ten composers who dominated American popular music for decades. Peterson had bassist Ray Brown and guitarist Barney Kessel, succeeded by Herb Ellis. It’s the trio that made Peterson famous with Jazz At The Philharmonic and–by way of the 10 albums reproduced […]

The DIVA Jazz Orchestra 25th Anniversary Project (ArtistShare) It has been a quarter of a century since Buddy Rich’s manager and relief drummer Stanley Kay found himself conducting a band whose drummer was young Sherrie Maricle. Intrigued by her playing, Kay set out to find whether there were other women jazz musicians of comparable talent. […]

Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock, Jack DeJohnette, After The Fall (ECM) In 1998 Keith Jarrett was emerging from a siege of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome that had sidelined him for two years. As he felt better, he was uncertain how completely his piano skill and endurance had returned. He decided to test himself. He gathered his longtime […]

Gerhard Kubik, Jazz Transatlantic, Vol. I and Vol. II (University Press of Mississippi) The first volume of Kubik’s work is subtitled, “The African Undercurrent in Twentieth–Century Jazz Culture;” the second, “Jazz Derivatives and Developments in Twentieth-Century Africa.” The descriptions indicate the depth and scope of the Austrian ethnomusicologist’s research, which has taken him to Africa […]